Blue Moon - Lee Child Page 0,43
coming in to take a look.”
There was the sound of Shevick getting shoved aside, and then footsteps in the hallway. Reacher stood up and moved behind the kitchen door. He opened a drawer, and another, and another, until he found a cooking knife. Better than nothing. He heard Abby and Maria move out of the living room and into the hallway.
The footsteps kept on coming.
He heard Abby say, “Who are you?”
“We’re looking for Mr. Aaron Shevick,” one of the guys said.
“Who?”
“What’s your name?”
“Abigail,” Abby said.
“Abigail what?”
“Reacher,” she said. “These are my grandparents, Jack and Joanna.”
“Where’s Shevick?”
“He was the last tenant. He moved out.”
“Where did he go?”
“He didn’t leave a forwarding address. He gave the impression he was having serious financial problems. I think basically he skipped in the night. He ran away.”
“You sure?”
“I know who lives here, mister. This is a two-bedroom house. One for my grandparents, and one for me, when I’m here. For guests, when I’m not. There are no squatters. I think I would have noticed.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“Who?”
“Mr. Aaron Shevick.”
“No.”
“I met him,” Maria Shevick said. “When we first saw the house.”
“What did he look like?”
“I remember him as being tall and powerfully built.”
“That’s the guy,” the voice said. “How long has he been gone?”
“About a year.”
No response. The footsteps moved on, to the living room door. The voice said, “You’ve been here a year and you don’t have a TV yet?”
“We’re retired,” Maria said. “These things are expensive.”
The voice said, “Huh.”
Reacher heard a quiet, scratchy click. Then the footsteps retreated. Back down the hallway. To the front door. To the front step. To the narrow concrete path. Reacher heard the car start up, and then he heard it drive away. The soft hiss and squelch of a big sedan.
Silence came back.
He put the knife in its place in the drawer, and he stepped out of the kitchen.
“Nice work, everyone,” he said.
Aaron looked shaky. Maria looked pale.
“They took a photograph,” Abby said. “Like a parting shot.”
Reacher nodded. The quiet, scratchy click. A cell phone, imitating a camera.
“A photograph of what?” he said.
“The three of us. Partly for their report. Partly for their just-in-case database. But mostly to intimidate. It’s what they do. People feel vulnerable.”
Reacher nodded again. He remembered the luminous guy in the bar. Raising his phone. The little snitch of a sound. If I was a real client, I wouldn’t have liked it.
The Shevicks stepped into the kitchen, to make more coffee. Reacher and Abby went to the living room, to wait for it.
Abby said, “Intimidation is not the only issue with that photograph.”
“What else?” Reacher said.
“They’ll text the picture. Among themselves. That’s what they do. In case someone can fill in another part of the puzzle. Sooner or later everyone will get the text. The guy on the door at work will get it. He knows I’m not Abigail Reacher. He knows I’m Abby Gibson. So do a lot of other guys on a lot of other doors, because I’ve worked a lot of other places. They’ll start asking questions. They already don’t like me.”
“Do they know where you live?”
“I’m sure they could make my boss tell them.”
“When will they send the text?”
“I’m sure they already have.”
“Is there someplace else you could stay?”
She nodded.
“I have a friend,” she said. “East of Center Street. Albanian territory, happily.”
“Can you work there?”
“I have before.”
Reacher said, “I sincerely apologize for the disruption.”
“I’m thinking of it as an experiment,” she said. “Someone once told me that every day a woman should do something that scared her.”
“She could join the army.”
“You need to be based east of Center anyway. We can stick together. At least tonight.”
“Will that be OK with your friend?”
“I hope so,” she said. “Will the Shevicks be OK tonight?”
Reacher nodded.
“People believe their own eyes,” he said. “In this case their own eyes were the luminous guy’s in the bar. He met me. His phone took my picture. I am Aaron Shevick. It’s set in stone. In their minds Shevick is a big tall guy from a younger generation. You could tell by the things they said. They accused him of being Shevick’s dad, or his father-in-law, but they never accused him of being Shevick himself. So they’ll be OK. As far as those guys are concerned, they’re just an old couple named Reacher.”
Then Maria called through to say the coffee was ready.
* * *
—
The manager of the grimy pawn shop across the narrow street from the taxi dispatcher and the bail bond office